WIN!! vs. win: Impact of "Outcome" Salience on Illusion of Control

Stefania Mereu, UIUC, Sapienza

Alejandro Lleras, UIUC

Abstract

In contingency judgment tasks (CJT) people typically
overestimate their control over an outcome. We hypothesized
that this outcome density effect (a type of illusion of control)
may be due to an attentional bias toward positive outcomes,
which may lead one to ignore negative outcomes and thus to
underestimate their occurrence. In order to directly test this
hypothesis, we manipulated the outcomes salience in a CJT,
inducing participants to focus on either positive or negative
outcomes. Results showed that enhancing the salience of
positive outcomes (wins) enhanced participants judgment of
control more so than enhancing than of negative outcomes
(losses). Moreover, when positive outcomes were salient,
participants overestimated the amount of money they had
earned during the experiment. In sum, the salience of the
outcome event affected both judgment of control and
memory for positive, more than for negative events, implying
that attentional mechanisms may play an important the role in
the illusion of control phenomenon.